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Sunday, August 4, 2013

The African Origins of Common English Words (III)

By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Let me begin this installment with an update. A
native Hausa speaker wrote to tell me that another Hausa word for fake is
“bogi” and suggests that “bogi” is a more likely candidate as the origin of the
English “bogus”— and of the Cajun French “bogue”— than “boko,” which also
initially meant fake in the Hausa language, as I pointed out last week. This
makes a lot of sense to me.

Bug.
In their book The African Heritage of American
English, Joseph Holloway and Winifred Vass claim that two major senses of
this word—that is, to annoy or bother persistently and a small insect— are
derived from West African languages. They say the sense of “bug” that means annoy
(as in, the paparazzi bugged the celebrities endlessly) traces its roots to the
Mandingo word “baga,” which means “to
offend, annoy, harm (someone).” “Bugal,”
they point out, is the Wolof equivalent of the Mandingo “baga.” Wolof and Mandingo, as I’ve pointed out in previous articles, are the main languages in Senegal and the Gambia and belong to the
same Niger-Congo language family.

Holloway and Vass aver that the sense of bug that means any insect, which is chiefly American, is derived from the Mandingo word “baga-baga,” which means “termite, white
ant, insect.” They also say the word “bugaboo,” an American English term for an
object of fear or alarm in both the literal and figurative sense, is a
derivative of bug. They find evidence for their claim in the fact that the
Liberian and black Jamaican English word for termite is “bugaboo.”

I am more persuaded by their etymology than the Oxford English Dictionary’s claim that
bugaboo is “probably of Celtic origin and related to Welsh bwci b ‘bogey, the
Devil,’ bwci ‘hobgoblin’ and Cornish bucca.” Bugaboo’s decidedly American
origin (which all dictionaries admit) makes it more likely to be of African
origin (by way of African-American English) than of Welsh origin.

Dig.
In informal English, when you “dig” something, it means you understand, like,
or appreciate it, as in “Do you dig the meaning of this letter?” or “I really
dig Celine Dion’s songs.” That expression began exclusively as Negro Nonstandard
English (as African-American English used to be called until fairly recently),
then made its way into mainstream American English, and finally crossed the
Atlantic to Britain—and to the entire English-speaking world. Holloway and Vass
assert that the word is derived from “deg”
or “dega,” which they say is the
Wolof word for “understand, appreciate, pay attention to.”

It’s hard to fault this etymology, especially
because Online Etymology Dictionary’s note on the word’s origin is rather wishy-washy
and unconvincing. It says the word’s sense of “understand,” which was first
documented 1934 in African-American English, is “probably based on the notion
of ‘excavate’” and adds: “A slightly varied sense of ‘appreciate’ emerged 1939.
Strong past participle dug appeared 16c., but is not etymological.” That makes
little sense, especially in light of Holloway and Vass’s insight on the Wolof
origin of the word.

Dirt.
Holloway and Vass say this everyday English word owes its life to the Akan word
“dote,” which means “earth, soil.”
(Akan, also known as Asante, Fante or Twi, is the major language group in
southern Ghana and parts of Cote d'Ivoire).
The meaning of dirt in Akan corresponds to one of the early meanings of
dirt in English, which is “soil or earth.” That sense is still retained in
common expressions like “dirt road,” which means an unpaved road. But the
authors’ evidence for the African origin of this word is rather dubious, even
dishonest. Many Nigerian languages, including Nigerian Pidgin English, use “doti” to denote dirt,” and “doti” is clearly an English borrowing
into Nigerian languages. No one contests that. I suspect that “dote” is also an English loanword in
Akan. But even if “dote” is native to Akan, it seems to me mere accidental evidence
that it means the same thing as “dirt” in English.

The etymology of “dirt” is well-documented. All the
authorities I’ve consulted agree that the word can be traced back to Middle
English, that is, from between 11000 to 1450—when there was no evidence of any
significant Black presence in England. The Random
House Dictionary says the word is derived from “drit,” an Old Norse word that meant “excrement,” which the Oxford English Dictionary says was the
word’s “early sense in English.” (Old Norse is a dead Germanic language that
existed from 700 to 1350). The Online Etymology Dictionary even traces the
word’s origin still further. It says the Old Norse word drit is “cognate with Old English dritan [which meant] ‘to void
excrement’.”

Guy.
The informal sense of this word that means a man, a boy, or a fellow is
originally Wolof, according to Holloway and Vass. They traced its origins to “gay,” the Wolof word for “fellow.” (Gay is pronounced “ga-i,” not “ge-i”). Conventionally,
in English, the singular form of “guy” denotes a youth or a man, and “guys”
denotes people of both or either sexes. For instance, the expression “let’s go, guys” can be directed
at women alone, at both men and women, or at men alone.

Dr. David
Dalby, a well-regarded English linguist known for his popular LinguasphereObservatory, once made the case that the plural, non-gendered “guys” in English
owes etymological debts to the Wolof “gay,”
which is also non-gendered and plural. All the etymological dictionaries I've consulted have no insight on the origin of "guy" other than to say that it came
to global, mainstream English from American English. This strengthens the
argument for the African origin of the word.

Hullaballoo.
This somewhat pretentious or facetious word for noisy disturbance, Holloway and
Vass claim, is an Anglicization “halua
balualua,” which they say is a Bantu expression used for “when those that
are coming arrive. Hence noise, uproar, racket of greeting.” I am dubious of
the accuracy of this claim.

The Online Etymology Dictionary says hullabaloo
first appeared in the English language in 1762 as “hullo-ballo” in northern
England and Scotland, and suggested that it’s probably “a rhyming reduplication
of hollo,” the earlier form for “hello.” The Oxford English Dictionary and the Collins English Dictionary support this theory of the probable
origin of the word. But that’s not the only reason I am reluctant to accept
notions of the African origin of the word. Holloway and Vass’ account of the
source and development of the word isn’t convincing.

Jiffy.
The authors of the African Heritage of
American English say this common English word for very short time, instant,
etc. is derived from the Bantu word “tshipi,”
which they say means “in a second, in a moment.” No known dictionary has
etymologized this word. The Online Etymology Dictionary says it is of unknown
origin and added that it entered English vocabulary in 1785 initially as the slang
term used by thieves to denote "lightning."

In the absence of any alternative etymology, it’s
reasonable to assume that Holloway and Vass are right.

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About Me

Dr. Farooq Kperogi is a professor, journalist, newspaper columnist, author, and blogger based in Greater Atlanta, USA. He received his Ph.D. in communication from Georgia State University's Department of Communication where he taught journalism for 5 years and won the top Ph.D. student prize called the "Outstanding Academic Achievement in Graduate Studies Award." He earned his Master of Science degree in communication (with a minor in English) from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and won the Outstanding Master's Student in Communication Award.

He earned his B.A. in Mass Communication (with minors in English and Political Science) from Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, where he won the Nigerian Television Authority Prize for the Best Graduating Student.

Dr. Kperogi worked as a reporter and news editor, as a researcher/speech writer at the (Nigerian) President's office, and as a journalism lecturer at Kaduna Polytechnic and Ahmadu Bello University before relocating to the United States.

He was the Managing Editor of the Atlanta Review of Journalism History, a refereed academic journal. He was also Associate Director of Research at Georgia State University's Center for International Media Education (CIME).

He is currently an Associate Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media at the School of Communication and Media, Kennesaw State University, Georgia's fastest-growing and third largest university. (Kennesaw is a suburb of Atlanta). He also writes two weekly newspaper columns: "Notes From Atlanta" in the Abuja-based DailyTrust on Saturday (formerly Weekly Trust) and "Politics of Grammar" in the DailyTrust on Sunday (formerly Sunday Trust).

In April 2014 Dr. Kperogi was honored as the Outstanding Alumnus of the University of Louisiana's Department of Communication. His research has also won international awards, such as the 2016 Top-Rated Research Paper Award at the 17th Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin, USA.